“Seyopa forces me to pause. It makes me realize all the things I’m missing and forgetting because I’m busy running all the time. It helps me listen inwardly to what really brings me alive.”

Stories to Inspire You

Self empowerment is about taking control of your life. This involves developing the self-trust and self-awareness you need to set the right goals, make sound decisions, and understand your strengths and weaknesses – so you can thrive.

Living a life fuelled by self empowerment is a refusal to allow others to make decisions for you.

Instead, it’s claiming your own path – regardless of what anyone else says – because you know that path is right for you.

It’s the harder path for sure. It’s far easier to settle for conventional rules and fall in line. It’s easier to play small and dumb down your goals and your ideas. But if you’re reading this, I know that’s not what you want.

You want to dream bigger and achieve more. You want to explore your full potential and you want to feel empowered to take the actions and decisions that lead to an abundant life.

So if you know there’s so much more out there, this article is for you.

Keep reading and you’ll discover SEVEN powerful self improvement techniques that will help you cultivate the grit, self-trust, and confidence you need to be your best.

1. Journaling

“An unexamined life is not worth living.” – Plato

Everyday you make decisions, ponder over thoughts, and live out experiences. It’s a big melting pot, which contains a host of insights ready for you to pull out.

That’s what journaling helps you to do – it’s a practice that empowers you to examine your life for self empowerment.

By getting introspective in your notebook, you can explore your thoughts and experiences more deeply. You can look for the connections, join up the dots, and get clearer on who you are.

Journaling isn’t just about mulling over the here and now. You can also use this practice to reflect over your life so you can get more clarity on what’s shaped your beliefs and your thought patterns. If you struggle to know what to journal about, ask yourself questions or get your hands on some prompts.

Do what it takes to get more clarity on the subconscious, hidden stuff that’s driving you, and you’ll be able to make more empowered choices moving forward.

2. Make good decisions

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” – Tony Robbins

When you lack confidence and you don’t know yourself, it’s easy to be influenced by the people you admire and respect.

Especially when it comes to those big, defining decisions!

If you don’t trust your own judgement, there’s a good chance you’ll be persuaded.

But what others think you should do isn’t necessarily what’s right for you.

Often, we know in our gut what the right choice is, but we end up overriding that decision because of fear, ‘logical’ thinking, and the opinions of others.

Decisiveness is powerful because it allows you to take control over your life.

Instead of procrastinating, you can choose and act.

So invest in developing your decision making skills.

Train your mind to think widely about the tough choices – considering all angles so you feel confident you’ve chosen well. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but trusting yourself enough to go for what you think is right is a hugely empowering thing to do.

3. Set goals

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” –Bill Copeland

When it comes to self empowerment, your goals are the drivers.

Set goals and you begin to live your life intentionally. Instead of allowing each day to be like the one before, you set a course that allows you to create the life YOU want.

Goals create focus.

They tell your brain what’s important (and what is less so).

They make it easy for you to prioritize what’s on your plate by putting the things that will take you closer to your targets first.

Goals are the seeds of change and they put you in the driving seat of your life.

Set goals that take you closer to the things you want, and take action on them, and you’ll feel more empowered than ever.

4. Manage your time

“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” – Stephen Covey

Each day, you wake up with 1440 minutes deposited in your time bank account.

Time is the greatest equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, we all get the same time allocation. It’s what you do with your time that counts.

It’s easy to feel disempowered in life when time feels scarce, but the truth is you do have enough time to do it all. It’s simply a case of prioritization and allocation.

Self empowerment is about taking responsibility for your time and ensuing you’re using it wisely. Ask yourself:

What are you doing that you don’t really enjoy?

Where are you wasting time through procrastination and distractions?

What could you outsource, delegate, or even scrap all together?

What are you not doing that you’d really love to explore?

Time is too precious to leave it to chance.

Instead, use a planner (such as the SELF Journal) to plan your day.

Figure out your daily targets (ensuring they’re aligned to your goals) and schedule in all your tasks in the same way you would a fixed appointment.

Budget your time to get it all done and there’s a good chance you will.

5. Don’t be afraid to fail

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

If self empowerment is about taking control and using your life to do the things you want, you MUST get comfortable with failure.

No one likes to fail. It’s uncomfortable, it can knock our confidence, and it makes us vulnerable to the judgement of others.

However, you can’t create a fully expressed life if you never push yourself out of your comfort zone. The things you want require you to take actions and make decisions that you’ve never taken before. It’s just the way it is! You can’t know everything in advance (and if you do, perhaps you’re not thinking big enough).

So give yourself the freedom and permission to get it wrong.

Change your perception of failure and see it as a fundamental part of the self-growth process. Turn ‘mistakes’ into learning opportunities and every time things don’t go as you planned, soak up the rush of fresh insights that will help you do more next time.

You aren’t your mistakes. You are so much more than that.

It takes guts to take a risk and push yourself further than you think you can go.

But prioritize courage over comfort, and you’ll feel more self empowered than ever.

6. Say no without feeling guilty

“Just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.” – Seth Godin

Time is your most precious resource.

So don’t waste it doing things you think you have to do.

I get it, saying no can be really hard – you don’t want to let people down and you don’t want others to feel bad about you.

But every time you say YES when you really mean no, you divert your time resource to activities you don’t really want to do.

Let that sink in…

Saying yes to someone else means saying no to you.

It’s your life and that means you’re allowed to do things your way. You’re allowed to prioritize your needs over other people’s.

Self empowerment involves being more mindful with your yeses and nos.

So next time someone makes a request of you and you want to say no, but feel you have to say yes, dive deeper into your thought process. Grab your journal if you need to.

When you understand your programming, you’ll be empowered to give replies that are true to you.

7. Love yourself

“Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.” – Robert Holden

How’s your relationship with yourself?

How do you feel when you look in the mirror? Do you like what you see? Do you think you’re worthy of living life to the full and creating everything you desire?

Without self love, everything else becomes so much harder.

It’s why nurturing your relationship with yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do. In fact, self love is the catalyst to virtually everything (including self empowerment).

Prioritize your self care routines.

Make more space for the things YOU enjoy (and enjoy them without feeling guilty).

Do the work necessary to ensure your self talk is positive, encouraging, and loving.

Practice daily gratitude and own all the abundance you have in your life already.

Exercise, eat well, and take care of yourself like you are the most important person in the world

Make sure your cup is full, and you’ll feel empowered to do so much more.

Self empowerment is a journey, NOT an overnight fix

Your ability to take control of your life and feel good in the skin you’re in is a state that’s constantly evolving.

That’s the beautiful thing about self growth…

The more you achieve and discover about yourself, the more you realize is possible.

In this episode of the Love & Light Show Laura McPhee, Joyful Goddess – Speaker, Healer, Coach, talks with Rachel who is the Creator and Founder of Seyopa.com and Seize Your Passion! 💖 Watch now to learn how to seize your passion using the 5 point cyclical framework of Self – Mindset – Action – Overcome – Success! 💖 You’ll be guided through resources that will support you on your journey 💞

The Love & Light Show showcases Lightworkers, Healers and Coaches who will support you on your healing journey and bring positivity into your life! Each week Laura McPhee brings a new guest live to the show on her Facebook page to support you with wisdom, tools, tips, modalities, experiences and healing energy to raise your vibration!!

Laura loves the quote “Be the change you wish to see in the world” and it is part of the inspiration for this show. We will support you in raising your vibration so that you can BE that change in your own life, your family, your community and by growing and learning together we will raise the vibration of the planet!!

Laura McPhee is a Certified ThetaHealer in Basic, Advanced and Manifesting & Abundance, a Master Reiki Practioner, Mastery University Graduate and Sound Healer. Laura is the host of the Love & Light Show, Creator of From Broken to Blissful and loves empowering women through self-love, self-care, sexual healing and releasing the limiting beliefs that they are not good enough, pretty enough, ____ enough. She is also an Empath, Claircognizant, a Reflector in human design and a Seeker who can easily identify and clear the blocks that have been holding you back and align you with your ideal life!

Are you doing it?

By, Lindsay Lonai Linegar

Photo by David Calderón on Unsplash

Author, theologian, and civil rights leader Howard Thurman once said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Someone I love once said something heartbreaking to me.

We were driving in the car somewhere as the sun was about to set. I, a passenger able to stare off into the distance, must have said something about the warm glow of light.

She responded by telling me it was her favorite time of day. In a moment of stunning vulnerability, she told me it was the time of day that reminded her she was supposed to be living.

It makes me ache still to remember, years later, but I can relate to this place she was in.

It seems exceedingly easy to let ourselves get to a place in life where we’re going through the motions, or just surviving, or numbing ourselves through an endless variety of medication. Sometimes it’s because we’ve been through something devastating, sometimes not. But I think there are times in all of our lives when we need a reminder that we’re supposed to be living.

Years ago, an idea came to mind. The idea was to take an epic road trip through the United States with one purpose: to ask random strangers what makes them come alive.

I would still love do this. I figure, since I know what it’s like to be numb or on autopilot, and how amazing it is to finally be shaken out of slumber — others might, too.

I imagine asking all sorts of people this question — the barista at a coffee shop, the cashier at a gas station, the person waiting for their traveling partner at a rest stop. I wonder at the types of responses I’d get, both physical and verbal. I mean, what kind of a question is that to ask a random stranger?

“Hi there, how ya doing? So, what makes you come alive?”

How would you react? How would I react? Who knows how this road trip would pan out. Maybe someday I’ll do it, and we’ll find out. But this idea of asking ourselves what makes us come alive, and then going and doing it? I can’t seem to shake it.

I don’t have any expert advice on how to figure this out, by the way. I suppose some people can recognize from a very young age what makes them come alive. It may take others longer to figure it out. Still others may not be able to, or want to, choose a single thing.

Personally, I refer to a line in a movie I’ve never even seen, for my own guidance on the matter.

In the movie Chariots of Fire, Olympic athlete Eric Liddell’s character says, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

Liddell, played by Ian Charleson, is speaking to his sister in this scene, responding to her concern that he is neglecting God’s purpose for his life by focusing on running.

I’ve always loved these words, since the first time I heard them. As a person who has faith in God, I can completely relate to this struggle. The struggle to know what your true purpose is in life, as a Christian, can be maddening. Let’s break down Eric’s words.

“I believe God made me for a purpose…”

Yes, I believe this, too. I believe God made all of us for a purpose, and I also believe it doesn’t need to be as complicated to figure out what that purpose is, as we sometimes make it.

“…but he also made me fast…”

I am definitely not a fast runner, so in place of fast, I might insert something like: “good with words” or “a lover of dance”.

“…and when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

This is my favorite part.

Imagine what the pleasure of the creator of the world must be like. If God is the God I think God is, then God is infinitely good. And an infinitely good God’s pleasure must be mind-blowing.

And when I do something on this earth, something even so seemingly minute as twirling around on a dance floor — to think of this act as correlating with God’s pleasure, is beautiful.

To me, these are the moments of pure joy in my life. So what makes me “come alive” and what makes me “feel God’s pleasure” are the moments when I feel nothing but joy. These are the moments of bliss when all the noise in my head stops, and I am so totally in the moment, I could literally die happy.

For me, this is when I’m dancing. Be it a night out with a girlfriend getting funky to hip-hop music, two-stepping to country music, learning steps to a dance in a foreign land, or letting the music sway me into a free-style dance in the privacy of my own home: dancing makes me come alive like nothing else.

Dance is not the only thing that enlivens me. Writing this, for example, also makes me come alive. Creative journaling makes me come alive. Traveling, being in nature, good conversation, discovering beautiful music, moments of grace — all of these things make me come alive.

Given the chance to travel around and ask others what makes them come alive would, without a doubt, make me come alive. Given the chance to travel around and learn about different dances from people who come alive when they dance, and then see if I can learn their dance, too? Ahhh, I can’t even imagine how alive I’d come. These are two very real dreams of mine.

But it could be anything for anybody. It could be woodworking or healing sick people or baking pie. It could be attempting to solve problems through math, technology, or political discourse. It could be serving on a team, studying ornithology, or playing the harmonica.

What about you? What is it for you?

What makes you come alive? Are you doing it?

And if you are not doing that thing, or those things, regularly in your life: what is stopping you?

Sure, this isn’t as good as it would be if we were sitting in a diner somewhere, talking. But it’s still a valuable exchange for me. If you’re willing, please take my question seriously. You can make my dream come true, a little bit at a time, with your response.

Life Is Hardly Predictable.

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

In the 1996 movie Jack, the lead character played by the late Robin Williams announces at his graduation: “Please, don’t worry so much. Because in the end none of us has very long on this earth. Life is fleeting. And if you’re ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky when the stars are strung across the velvety night. And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day, make a wish, and think of me. Make your life spectacular.” There is something memorable about that passage that drives deep into our hearts. True to his words, Robin Williams lived a remarkable life equalled with an illustrious career. This is not a surmise on the late actor, rather an invitation to: “Make your life spectacular.”

The art of living beautifully is a call to know thyself without exception. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of external events which disrupt the foundations of our inner life. To know oneself means to align with our Authentic Self. Regretfully, many people seldom explore the complexity of their emotional constitution until it’s too late. A life of beauty arises when we move beyond our fixed reality and dare to explore the life we dream possible. It means to live fearlessly, beyond the walls of a comfortable existence. Is this something that appeals to you? To live a beautiful life means to transform disempowering states into positive life experiences. It’s no secret that life events can scar us and leave us vulnerable. We cease taking risks for fear of getting hurt. While universal, the drawback is to retreat without ever reaching for the treasures we long for.

One of the greatest minds of our century, Albert Einstein once said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” I urge you to explore this sentiment by trusting in the mysterious where the seeds of opportunity lie. Life is hardly predictable. Like torrential rain on a sultry night, when change ushers through, it can leave a deluge of uncertainty in its wake. For that reason, we must consider our problems as an alluring adventure instead of a melting pot of frustration.While challenging, a change in perception allows us to appreciate difficult moments to cultivate our personal growth. We must be mindful of these opportunities as they arise, rather than concede life is devoid of wonderful moments.

Photo by Simon Maage

Miracles Come In Moments

“All of life is peaks and valleys. Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.” — John Wooden

Most people strive for happiness, so much so that bookshelves are littered with advice proclaiming the secret to attain happiness in thirty days or less. Yet research shows we are less happy than in the past. Maybe technology is to blame for creating insincere connections devoid of social interactions. To be in service of others is a way out of the unhappiness trap. It is not a transitory practice either, rather an opportunity to deepen our connection with ourselves. Clearly, we know happiness is not tied to owning the latest smartphone or sports car. While the advice seems obvious, many people fill the emptiness within by amassing material objects. This creates more desires and if we have limited financial resources, it creates further pain and suffering. I assure you, no material object will complete you more than what lies deep within your soul.

To live beautifully means to live according to our highest values. In doing so, we form meaningful connections with others that enrich our life. Likewise, we must avoid perceiving life as a sequence of daily routines and events which pass by at the blink of an eye. If we subscribe to this erroneous thinking, we succumb to the monotony of living a Groundhog Day existence. Miracles take place right before our eyes. We miss them because we rush about our day scurrying to the next event or trying to meet deadlines. The late American self-help author Dr.Wayne Dyer believed: “Miracles come in moments. Be ready and willing.” Miracles cannot be experienced by analyzing the past or future, for they will pass us by like a high-speed train if we are unaware.

This is why we must avoid clinging to our thoughts and move into our heart, the source of all wisdom where our soul calls home.Similarly, a beautiful life calls us to recognize what is of value to us. One way to experience beauty is to stop, listen, and connect with our surroundings. This means to slow to the speed of life instead of running around like the mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland, hoping to get everything done yet achieving little. To be present in the moment is challenging because life pulls us in different directions. Before long, we succumb to external forces instead of abiding by our inner blueprint. Similarly, we ought to let go of unnecessary stressors that are not tied to our long-term happiness.

Unwelcomed stress affects our capacity to enjoy life because we react to events, instead of allowing them to pass through our lives. Visualize a boxer backed into the ropes, battling punches from his opponent. He is unable to move into an offensive stance because he is stuck in that position. Life has that effect because we are pushed and pulled to our limits and retreat in resignation. Sure enough, the next blow arrives stronger than before and if our guard is down, we’re knocked to the ground harder than before. It was William Wallace who declares to the Princess Of Wales in the epic motion picture Braveheart: “Every man dies, not every man really lives.” To live a beautiful life is an invitation to live passionately while we still have every chance.

Your Soul Knows The Best Path For You

“The soul has been given its own ears to hear things that the mind does not understand.”

— Rumi

Have you ever experienced a sense of oneness? A feeling of connectedness with life and the universe? What did it feel like on an emotional level? These types of occurrences are difficult to explain through logic and reason because the soul experiences what the mind cannot explain. For example, how do you describe the attraction towards another person via logic? You might describe how the other person makes you feel, but it is difficult to define the exact quality of the attraction. This is because emotions are the language of the soul and can only be experienced through the heart. Soulful living is an invitation to merge with our heart and mind through these faculties. Is this something you’re willing to explore in your life?

I’ll admit, it can be difficult to navigate our way through life at the soul level because the communication is hard to distinguish. In contrast, the language of thought is direct because we are familiar with it. This doesn’t mean thoughts are the only way to make sense of the world. In fact, many of our problems stem from an overactive mind that leads to stress since we buy into the narrative our thoughts promote. Have you noticed this with the mindless chatter that takes place in your head which can cause chaos and confusion? The language of the heart speaks in silence and relays messages through subtle signs and symbols.

Your soul knows the best path for you in life, yet it may not appear that way sometimes because of the challenges you face. Regardless, these are vital lessons to expand your soul’s evolution. I’ve experienced many of these lessons throughout my life and now realize my soul was communicating to me through these experiences. Whilst they were difficult, a new path emerged following the event that lead me in a new direction. Have you experienced something like this before? Whether it be the breakup of a relationship, losing a job or the unexpected loss of a loved one? Whilst these events can be distressing, they leave a ripple effect in our consciousness and we can never go back to the same way of living.

Acceptance Does Not Mean Resignation

“You cannot find your soul with your mind, you must use your heart. You must know what you are feeling. If you don’t know what you are feeling, you will create unconsciously.”

— Gary Zukav

I’ve written about my life-and-death encounter in earlier articles where I describe a gradual awakening that foreshadowed a new way of living. I began to read books on consciousness, personal growth and leadership and realised my experience was a gateway to expanded living. Regrettably, I lost many friends during this time whom I no longer identified with. It seemed we were speaking different languages that neither of us could understand and our life’s journey was taking us in different directions. Naturally, I wanted to hold on to these relationships because I had known these people since childhood. As painful as it was, I allowed life to take the lead, and surrendered to the process. I stopped resisting the changes because they were happening, regardless of my struggle. My resistance only fuelled more suffering, and it was easier to go with the flow hoping it would lead to somewhere special. I’m glad I did because that special place is the one I am living now and the person writing these words on your screen.

Sometimes, what seems like the wrong turn, is the only turn we need to take for life to guide us where we need to be. The soul has a plan for us and knows the people that will enter our life at the right time. It knows what lessons we need for our soul’s evolution. It makes it easier when we let go of resistance and learn to accept what is unfolding. Remember, acceptance does not mean resignation, nor does it mean we like what is happening. It means letting go of the mental drama of why things shouldn’t be happening as they are. All our problems will melt away when we accept what life is trying to bring us. Sometimes the pieces may be still coming together and the situation may look fragmented. This is an opportunity to practice infinite patience and wait for the storm to pass, before taking the next step.

With this in mind, I’d like you to think about a difficult situation in your life right now. Ask yourself: What does my soul want me to learn from this experience? How does my soul want me to learn and grow from it? Journal your answers in a diary. I assure you there will be responses that come forth which may not make sense at first. Keep exploring them and follow the trail. Sometimes, it will be easy and at other times you will be frustrated because you cannot make sense of what is unfolding. This is natural because you might try to dance quicker than the song being played. The uni-verse (one song) has an inherent rhythm we must abide by and when we learn to synchronise with it, life flows easily and effortlessly. Your soul not only knows what the mind cannot understand, it knows the best way to get there.

Each day, you’re given 86,400 seconds to make the most of. You’re given the latitude to pursue what you want, even if it only ends up being for a very small percentage of those seconds. You have time. You have a shot — and that’s all that most of us can really ask for. So, when I see people squandering that time and wasting it on things that don’t add value and that waste their talents, it gets me down.

But more than that — it puzzles me. So many of us don’t realize the opportunities we’re letting pass us by.

An investment toward a venture and new beginning doesn’t take nearly as much time each day as you think. It’s not about one lump sum of output for one day over a few days or week. The journey is about repetition. It’s about consistency and continuous output. Showing up each day and finding a way to let yourself shine, in all your authenticity, in whatever your thing is.

So why do we spend time on things that don’t matter? For one thing — too many of us haven’t defined what matters most to us. As crazy as that sounds, we simply don’t know. We haven’t taken the time in deep thought and imagination toactually visualize and verbalize what we love and what means the most to us in this lifetime.

This manifests itself in our professional and personal lives, as well as how we perceive opportunities. Actually, it sometimes comes down to the way we perceive things like, well, vegetables. Take this from Stanford professor S. Christian Wheeler:

You may wish you liked your job more than you do, and you may find ways to make it more palatable, “but maybe your job really is bad.” Or you may want to eat more broccoli because you know it’s good for you, but if you dislike the taste there may be no way to convince yourself to eat it. [Source: Stanford Graduate School of Business]

We shouldn’t have to convince ourselves to like something that isn’t worth our time. While many of us need jobs, we’d be better off taking the time to specify what we really want instead of languishing or suffering in a role that is more mentally and emotionally draining than worth its yield in monetary income.

The Choice is Yours

We have a choice — that’s the point. And choice is enabled when we brainstorm and list out things that mean something to us. These are values, goals, passions and defining what success or happiness look like. It’s not hard to wonder how someone became successful or why some people are happier than others. They didn’t just fly by the seat of their pants and stumble into those states.

“The ultimate aim of the human mind, in all its efforts, is to become acquainted with truth.” ―Eliza Farnham

They consciously planned, imagined, visualized and activated that successful state or feeling of happiness. It takes time and effort. So many people, due to emotions like nervousness, lack of faith, or the mode of indecisiveness fail to take the time to do this work. They think it should be overlooked and that they should just jump right in and keep churning away and working hard.

But there’s a big difference between hard work without a light at the end of the tunnel, and hard, intelligent work that is designed to get us to an end goal and let us reap the rewards of learning and growth on our journey. We grow, we find meaning and we reach out pinnacle of self-actualization when we define what matters most to us and then approach that with a positive attitude and inspired, intelligent, industrious work ethic.

So put your smartphone down. Turn down that invite for happy hour drinks on Friday night, that turns into a long night on the town, spilling into the precious time you could use on Saturday morning consciously plotting your future plans. It’s not worth it. Your devotion to what matters most to you — whether it be family, your job, your faith or your passion — should be valued above everything else.

Don’t get disillusioned or caught up in the instant gratification social media world that prizes sensationalism and fleeting “cool” things over substance. Your journey to finding yourself and what you truly love is often long, sometimes lonely, but always worth it.

An inspired, bold life is one lived on your terms and infused with doing meaningful, joyful things that light the fire inside of you, and simultaneously add value to the life of others.

You Cannot Form A True Identity On Unstable Foundations

“Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul.” — Thomas Merton

When we connect with the core of our being, we merge with the Truth of our core self. This self is not obscured by labels or limiting beliefs about who it should be, because it knows how to survive in the world. This self is your true essence and because we dissociate from it, we lose our way.

But you can never become lost when you are tied to universal intelligence. We ought to find time for silence because without regular silence we are caught up in the outside world and get distracted by the external noise. Worse still, we move into our heads and listen to the stream of incessant thoughts which occupy space in our minds. I’m not suggesting we ignore our thoughts, rather our thoughts have little to offer us by way of who we are. They are labels, ideas and impressions we pick up along the way during our life’s journey. But just as a GPS device, they tell us no more of who we are if we are not connected to a satellite or use the wrong map.

To reveal our authentic self we must learn to let go of ideas instead of accumulate more. Consider a hoarder who buys collectables without selling existing items. Soon enough his space is packed full of items and he cannot move around until he frees up additional space. Our minds are the same. It is full of thoughts, that it becomes a distorted representation of the nature of reality. I use distorted in the kindest possible sense to show it being obscured from seeing the truth.

Consider the following tale and notice what comes up for you: A long time ago, there was a wise Zen master. People from far and near sought his counsel for his wisdom to become enlightened in the way of Zen. He seldom turned any away. One day an important man of command and obedience came to visit the master. “I have come today to ask you to teach me about Zen. Open my mind to enlightenment.” The tone of the important man’s voice was accustomed to getting his own way.

The Zen master smiled and said they should discuss the matter over a cup of tea. When the tea is served the master poured the visitor a cup. He continued to pour until the tea overflowed the rim of the cup and spilled over onto the robes of the man. Finally the visitor shouted: “Enough. You are spilling the tea all over. Can’t you see the cup is full?” The master stopped pouring and smiled at his guest. “You are like this tea cup, so full that nothing more can be added. Come back when the cup and your mind are empty.”

Like the important man visiting the wise Zen master, he cannot gain more information when his mind is full. Letting go of our stories, ideas and beliefs is not easy because we fear we will lose our identity if we do so. If you believe that to be true, you have built an identity on shaky ground. You cannot form a true identity on unstable foundations, for that is equivalent to building a house on sand hoping it won’t sink into the ground. That’s why we must gradually abandon our perceptions of life to replace them with the truth.

Your Soul Knows The Best Passage For Your Life’s Journey

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”― C.G. Jung

It may take an entire lifetime to awaken our authentic self, which is concealed by the weight of past conditioning. However, it is better to live an authentic life than imprisoned as someone you pretend to be.

In her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing, author Bronnie Ware states the following as the five regrets:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

The number one regret of the dying is to have lived a more authentic life and not live according to the wishes of others. Depending on your circumstances, you still have time to chart a new course while striving to live from the heart. The mind will lead you so far, while the heart with its infinite wisdom will direct you on a journey of self-discovery. Contained within this self-discovery is the journey to awaken you to your authentic self.

Author Paulo Coelho writes in The Alchemist:

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”

The heart is the seat of the soul and since your soul is infinite, it knows the best passage for your life’s journey. Soulful living is an invitation to live beyond the material world and be led by your heart’s wisdom. You will not be led astray if you follow your heart. Heart-based or soulful living is the awakening of your authentic self. Once you awaken this loving kindness within, you can never go back to living your former ways. Like a gradual awakening of the heart, you will experience life through the eyes of a child, because you now see life through an awakened mind, instead of an overflowing cup. As you follow your heart, it will lead you to destinations and experiences infinitely orchestrated for your personal evolution.

These ten people were asked about their biggest failures, rejections, and lowest points. What they have to say is nothing short of moving, inspiring, and a great reminder for us all that we will get through our toughest times, even when our toughest times seem to go on forever, and we will be better and stronger for it. If we so choose.

Maybe it’s time to redefine success….

Remember that line from the movie Swingers? :-). The context may be different, but it’s sooo true!!! You are sooooo money!!! (And you don’t even know it).

We all are!!! So why don’t we allow ourselves to recognize or fully acknowledge that?!

I think one reason is that we’re all so hard on ourselves, and we don’t give ourselves the credit that we freakin’ deserve! And that’s important!!!

You are AMAZING! You’ve achieved and accomplished so much! You’ve overcome sooo much! You take care of and give so much!!

Own that! Embrace that! Acknowledge and celebrate that!!!!

Another reason we don’t do that nearly enough is because of how “success” has been defined for us. Not by us.

We take the word “success” to mean what our culture and society at large decided it means for all of us. But, in reality, how you define success is totally unique and individual to YOU; and it’s totally based on what’s important to you!!! Not to anyone or everyone else! And I think we forget that.

And because of that, we end up feeling less-than, not enough, unfulfilled, unhappy, stressed, and sometimes even sick. Literally and physically sick.

Succeeding at the expense of our health and well-being is not succeeding.” – Arianna Huffington

Meaning, we each need to redefine our own “success” in a way that allows us to thrive; in a way that compliments rather than contradicts our joy, our passion, our beliefs, our values, our dreams, our purpose, our meaning, and our true fulfillment in life!!!

In a way that enhances and enriches and elevates us. In a way that speaks to, and brings out, your truth, and your best YOU!

That’s true success in my book!! Right?!!

And yet, despite the fact that we know that, and even believe it to be true, somehow we don’t act accordingly.

(Which reminds me of another great movie quote from The Departed: “We’re all dying. Act accordingly!” Which was delivered brilliantly, by the way, by Jack Nicholson).

But what do we do instead? We beat ourselves up for not having gotten to some generalized, end-point, finish line that’s based on someone else’s definition of what success should mean to you.

When you think about it, It’s totally ludicrous! It’s absurd!

And this whole notion of how we define “success” is totally related to what it really means to self-actualize, realize your full potential, and become your best self. It’s not about some finite end point, target, or any one goal. Rather, what self-actualization is really about is continuously evolving, growing, and becoming better. Each day, each year, each decade.

Actualizing your self is about pushing that potential, that innate greatness you have within you, a little (or a lot) further each and every day.

But because we don’t think about it in this way, the notion of realizing your dreams and becoming your best self ends up freezing us, and actually stopping us from doing just that!

We tell ourselves we’re not there yet, we’re not ready yet, or not good enough yet to reach that elusive, illusionary, end-goal target.

Instead, we need to remember:

(1) Just how money you really are!!!! (2) To start now, wherever you are, and just take a next step.

A next step to evolving, growing, and becoming better than you were yesterday. That’s it. That’s self-actualization! That is, in and of itself, what it means to realize your potential. To consciously be on that ever-limitless trajectory of growth. Just better every day. That’s it.

Do one new thing you love today. Do more of what you love, today. Be more of who you love. Today.

That’s truly how you realize your dreams and become your best self! Today!!! 🙂 #SeizeYourPassion!

Your desire to be your best, to realize your dreams, to be successful, happy, and fulfilled- it’s NOT just a luxury, or a “want.”

Rather, that desire, that yearning to be all that you can be, to fulfill your potential, and to live your best, most joyous, meaningful, and fulfilling life, it’s a real, actual, universal, basic human NEED!!!!

In wellness terms (including your soul’s wellness, in addition to your psychological, emotional, and physical wellness), a “need” is defined as something that if goes unmet, creates a pathology (meaning a disease or sickness, as in the opposite of wellness) or a pathological problem.

The most concrete example is your need for food. If that need goes unmet, it creates a pathological problem in your body.

Our need for love is the same, though not as obvious in a tangible way. If your need for love goes unmet, it creates a pathological problem (meaning, a lack of wellness) in your life.

(And by the way, that’s as true for doing what you love and being who you love – which is essentially giving yourself love – as it is for receiving love from others! They’re both equally vital to your wellness!!!. Because LOVE is everything! And everything starts with YOU! But I digress…..)

So too is it with your need to self-actualize!!! Your hunger, drive, and desire to achieve and attain success, happiness, meaning, purpose, fulfillment, to be your best, to fulfill your potential, and to realize your dreams – that’s something to embrace, nourish, cultivate, develop, and maximize – NOT from a place of ego-driven entitlement or selfish want, but from a place of soul wellness and real, basic, human need!!!

And I think it’s important to remember that. To remember and be reminded that your need for self-actualization is a beautiful and pure essential part of YOU, your being, and your wellness!

It’s not something to shove away, bury, minimize, or be ashamed of in any way whatsoever (which I think is something we all tend to do sometimes – we think, who am I to want such grand dreams, or who am I to think I can achieve such success, or whatever form of beating yourself up you tend to go to).

You NEED to Self-Actualize – to strive to become your best, realize your dreams, grow, evolve, and live your best life possible with meaning, purpose, passion and fulfillment – just as you need food, and just as you need love. :-)))

Self empowerment is about taking control of your life. This involves developing the self-trust and self-awareness you need to set the right goals, make sound decisions, and understand your strengths and weaknesses – so you can thrive.

Living a life fuelled by self empowerment is a refusal to allow others to make decisions for you.

Instead, it’s claiming your own path – regardless of what anyone else says – because you know that path is right for you.

It’s the harder path for sure. It’s far easier to settle for conventional rules and fall in line. It’s easier to play small and dumb down your goals and your ideas. But if you’re reading this, I know that’s not what you want.

You want to dream bigger and achieve more. You want to explore your full potential and you want to feel empowered to take the actions and decisions that lead to an abundant life.

So if you know there’s so much more out there, this article is for you.

Keep reading and you’ll discover SEVEN powerful self improvement techniques that will help you cultivate the grit, self-trust, and confidence you need to be your best.

1. Journaling

“An unexamined life is not worth living.” – Plato

Everyday you make decisions, ponder over thoughts, and live out experiences. It’s a big melting pot, which contains a host of insights ready for you to pull out.

That’s what journaling helps you to do – it’s a practice that empowers you to examine your life for self empowerment.

By getting introspective in your notebook, you can explore your thoughts and experiences more deeply. You can look for the connections, join up the dots, and get clearer on who you are.

Journaling isn’t just about mulling over the here and now. You can also use this practice to reflect over your life so you can get more clarity on what’s shaped your beliefs and your thought patterns. If you struggle to know what to journal about, ask yourself questions or get your hands on some prompts.

Do what it takes to get more clarity on the subconscious, hidden stuff that’s driving you, and you’ll be able to make more empowered choices moving forward.

2. Make good decisions

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” – Tony Robbins

When you lack confidence and you don’t know yourself, it’s easy to be influenced by the people you admire and respect.

Especially when it comes to those big, defining decisions!

If you don’t trust your own judgement, there’s a good chance you’ll be persuaded.

But what others think you should do isn’t necessarily what’s right for you.

Often, we know in our gut what the right choice is, but we end up overriding that decision because of fear, ‘logical’ thinking, and the opinions of others.

Decisiveness is powerful because it allows you to take control over your life.

Instead of procrastinating, you can choose and act.

So invest in developing your decision making skills.

Train your mind to think widely about the tough choices – considering all angles so you feel confident you’ve chosen well. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but trusting yourself enough to go for what you think is right is a hugely empowering thing to do.

3. Set goals

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” –Bill Copeland

When it comes to self empowerment, your goals are the drivers.

Set goals and you begin to live your life intentionally. Instead of allowing each day to be like the one before, you set a course that allows you to create the life YOU want.

Goals create focus.

They tell your brain what’s important (and what is less so).

They make it easy for you to prioritize what’s on your plate by putting the things that will take you closer to your targets first.

Goals are the seeds of change and they put you in the driving seat of your life.

Set goals that take you closer to the things you want, and take action on them, and you’ll feel more empowered than ever.

4. Manage your time

“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” – Stephen Covey

Each day, you wake up with 1440 minutes deposited in your time bank account.

Time is the greatest equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, we all get the same time allocation. It’s what you do with your time that counts.

It’s easy to feel disempowered in life when time feels scarce, but the truth is you do have enough time to do it all. It’s simply a case of prioritization and allocation.

Self empowerment is about taking responsibility for your time and ensuing you’re using it wisely. Ask yourself:

What are you doing that you don’t really enjoy?

Where are you wasting time through procrastination and distractions?

What could you outsource, delegate, or even scrap all together?

What are you not doing that you’d really love to explore?

Time is too precious to leave it to chance.

Instead, use a planner (such as the SELF Journal) to plan your day.

Figure out your daily targets (ensuring they’re aligned to your goals) and schedule in all your tasks in the same way you would a fixed appointment.

Budget your time to get it all done and there’s a good chance you will.

5. Don’t be afraid to fail

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

If self empowerment is about taking control and using your life to do the things you want, you MUST get comfortable with failure.

No one likes to fail. It’s uncomfortable, it can knock our confidence, and it makes us vulnerable to the judgement of others.

However, you can’t create a fully expressed life if you never push yourself out of your comfort zone. The things you want require you to take actions and make decisions that you’ve never taken before. It’s just the way it is! You can’t know everything in advance (and if you do, perhaps you’re not thinking big enough).

So give yourself the freedom and permission to get it wrong.

Change your perception of failure and see it as a fundamental part of the self-growth process. Turn ‘mistakes’ into learning opportunities and every time things don’t go as you planned, soak up the rush of fresh insights that will help you do more next time.

You aren’t your mistakes. You are so much more than that.

It takes guts to take a risk and push yourself further than you think you can go.

But prioritize courage over comfort, and you’ll feel more self empowered than ever.

6. Say no without feeling guilty

“Just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.” – Seth Godin

Time is your most precious resource.

So don’t waste it doing things you think you have to do.

I get it, saying no can be really hard – you don’t want to let people down and you don’t want others to feel bad about you.

But every time you say YES when you really mean no, you divert your time resource to activities you don’t really want to do.

Let that sink in…

Saying yes to someone else means saying no to you.

It’s your life and that means you’re allowed to do things your way. You’re allowed to prioritize your needs over other people’s.

Self empowerment involves being more mindful with your yeses and nos.

So next time someone makes a request of you and you want to say no, but feel you have to say yes, dive deeper into your thought process. Grab your journal if you need to.

When you understand your programming, you’ll be empowered to give replies that are true to you.

7. Love yourself

“Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.” – Robert Holden

How’s your relationship with yourself?

How do you feel when you look in the mirror? Do you like what you see? Do you think you’re worthy of living life to the full and creating everything you desire?

Without self love, everything else becomes so much harder.

It’s why nurturing your relationship with yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do. In fact, self love is the catalyst to virtually everything (including self empowerment).

Prioritize your self care routines.

Make more space for the things YOU enjoy (and enjoy them without feeling guilty).

Do the work necessary to ensure your self talk is positive, encouraging, and loving.

Practice daily gratitude and own all the abundance you have in your life already.

Exercise, eat well, and take care of yourself like you are the most important person in the world

Make sure your cup is full, and you’ll feel empowered to do so much more.

Self empowerment is a journey, NOT an overnight fix

Your ability to take control of your life and feel good in the skin you’re in is a state that’s constantly evolving.

That’s the beautiful thing about self growth…

The more you achieve and discover about yourself, the more you realize is possible.

And how to make them count, and last!

You know those moments in life when you have this huge epiphany, or realization, or understanding of something in a new way – and it just FUELS YOU with energy and passion and excitement and determination?!

Aren’t those the best?!

You just get it! And you’re totally inspired and empowered, and filled with certainty and belief!!!

………

But then, what happens? More often than not, that fuel and those amazing feelings gra-du-ally fade out….

You still have the cognitive “aha moment” understanding; your head still remembers and knows it as truth, but your body and your spirit (your heart, your emotions, your soul, and your energy) don’t feel it in the same visceral way anymore.

And then because of that, you look around you and what you see is- that nothing’s really changed.

Your intellectual knowledge of that powerful and profound insight, that invisible and intangible thought, doesn’t seem to carry much weight or hold much significance in the real, physical, practical world around you. It doesn’t seem to make much, if any, of a difference.

Which, in turn, depletes the idea and enlightenment itself (and you) even more of its very power. Until eventually, it becomes completely disregarded, minimized, or even forgotten.

Essentially, it gets filed in your brain under the –“I know this already, and I have nothing new to learn from it or use it for” file;or the –“This is one of those BS, cheesy, corny, trite cliches that makes no difference in the real world or in my life” file.

And that perception, that realization, really, really sucks!!!! It saddens me, it angers me, and it actually fuels me in the same, but different, kind of way. To change it!

So how do you change that?

How do you instead, empower the power of perspective shifts, of epiphanies, and of insights to empower you long-term, so they don’t fade out and do have lasting, tangible impact on your life?!

It’s by taking those realizations and those epiphanies, which are in essence perspective shifts, and turning them into behavioral shifts!

Because there’s a discipline and a practice to passion too!

It’s the taking action piece of seizing your passion! But it’s taking the right kind of inspired action that comes from having the perspective shift first.

You need the mindset first.

(And even before the mindset, you need to understand your Self and know your Truth first, first-:-). Remember the Seize Your Passion cyclical framework of Self-Mindset-Action-Overcome-Success? If not, or if you want to reacquaint with it, go here).

And then you need the action piece – you need to do something that comes from and out of that mindset!

BUT, not just do that something once, or as a one-off. You need to do it regularly and consistently, until it becomes a part of your behavior, and a part of you.

That is when and how the intellectual knowledge, the cerebral perspective shift of understanding it in your head also turns into knowing it, feeling it, and experiencing it in your body and spirit!

And the regularity of that experience, the consistency, and the repetition of it is what makes it a habit, and eventually even an effortless and almost automatic one!!!

And that is where and when and how YOU turn your perspective shifts into behavioral shifts that actually EMPOWER and IMPACT and TRANSFORM your life!!!!

I challenge you to start doing that now, consistently and regularly, with this simple, but profound truth we all know and understand in our heads –

Do More of What You Love, and Be More of Who You Love!!!

I challenge you to take that perspective shift, that mindset, that cerebral understanding and turn it into a behavioral shift in your life!

And how they can help you live your best life possible!

Question: If you had to pick, what would you say your top three motivators are? In general, as a person, and in your life?

What are the top three things that really drive you to want to be your best, to want to succeed, to dream big, to actually want to get out of bed in the morning and go realize those dreams, and just in general, to want to live your best life possible?

Answer: The THREE MOST POWERFUL Intrinsic Motivators we all have (after basic needs for safety and security are met) – the three basic desires and drivers we all share that underlie pretty much everything we want out of life, however different the specific wants out of our own individual lives may be, are:

1)Autonomy2) Mastery3) Purpose

Autonomy being, the desire to steer your own ship.Mastery being, the desire to steer it well. Purpose being, the desire for the journey to matter.

How true is that?!!! And being aware of it is so powerful!!! Here’s what I mean.

Autonomy- the desire to steer your own ship. We all want to be the designer and creator of our own life. We don’t want to live our life based on someone else’s creation or design. We want to be the one who’s calling the shots and be the director / author / CEO of our own life, right?! It’s our life, after all.

And we want (and deserve, and have earned the right) to live it based on our values, beliefs, standards, desires, and dreams; NOT based on someone else’s expectations, approval, control, or power.

This is essentially what I mean when I say, all the time- Live Your Truth! It sounds simple and obvious, but how many of us really, truly do this???

But, when we’re aware of it in this context, as being one of our 3 primary motivators for everything we want in life, it inspires and helps us to act and live accordingly; to make choices and decisions accordingly; to prioritize our time and energy accordingly; and to remember to stay true to ourselves and live our truth, not someone else’s.

It’s huge. Autonomy. Then, Mastery.

Mastery- the desire to steer that ship well. We want to live our life well! We all want to live our life in the best possible way we can, right?! We want to be the best CEO, director, and author that we can be so that we can live our best possible life!

Is there anyone who wakes up in the morning and says, “Nah – I don’t really want my life to be that great, I don’t really care if I f**k up my role as the creator and designer of my life.” Um, no! I don’t think so.

We all want to be the best we can be at life in general, and in whatever it is we do. No one wants to be shitty.

When we remember this, again – it inspires and helps us to learn, grow, evolve, and to continuously strive to become the best versions of ourselves so that we can master our skills, our abilities, and our capabilities to live our life well! It’s that simple.

Autonomy. Mastery. Then, Purpose. Purpose- the desire for the journey to matter. OK, this one is dearest to my heart! Because, one of the foundational cornerstones of Purpose is Passion!!!

We all want our life to mean something, and to have meaning. We want our life to matter. To have purpose. Why? Simply because one of the core elements that human beings need to be happy is a sense of meaning.

Passion is so often what gives us that meaning, and that purpose. Its what opens up the gates to discovering it, cultivating it, and attaining it! Passion is also what gives us the motivation and strength to persevere through challenges, rejections, and failures long enough to have a meaningful impact!

And, there are two hungers we all have, and the word “hunger” here can easily be substituted with the word “passion.”

1) The smaller hunger of what I want now, in the short term. The instant gratification hunger; and

2)The greatest hunger of all, that which we all share – the hunger, the passion, for a meaningful, successful, and joyful life! The hunger to become all that we are capable of becoming, and to live our best possible life! That is the hunger, and the passion, that Seize Your Passion is made of! And that is the hunger, and the passion, that drives our desire to have Purpose, and to make the journey matter!

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”– Nelson Mandela

And then there’s LOVE. I can’t leave love out of this discussion because here too, the word “passion” can easily substitute the word “love.” And because, I really believe that at the end of the day, and at the end of all of our days, LOVE is really all that matters!

Did we love our life? Did we love ourselves? Did we love others? Did we live out of that love? Did we inspire love? Did we express and share our love?

Whatever comes out of, or is a result of, LOVE, and I’m talking about real, true love (in any form, expression, or relationship) is always good, and always meaningful!

That’s why doing more of what you love and being more of who you love is the key to feeding that greatest hunger we all have, the key to fulfilling those 3 primary drivers and most powerful intrinsic motivators we all have, and it’s the key to living your best life possible!

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”– Ella Fitzgerald

“Love the life you live. Live the life you love.”– Bob Marley

“Love is the oxygen of our lives. Breathe it in deeply today.” – Tony Robbins

As always- Do more of what you love. Be more of who you love. Seize Your Passion!

How to Realize Your Dreams and Become Your Best Self!

I’ve got one word for you –

Sisu!!!!!!!!!

Besides the fact that it’s really fun saying out loud (I dare you to try right now), it’s such an amazing word because of what it means and stands for!

“Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness….It is generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English.” – Wikipedia

Here’s my equivalent, and how I think we can embody Sisu and actually practice it in life to realize our dreams and become our best selves!

I often describe the framework of Seizing Your Passion as a 5 point circle, where each of the 5 points are interconnected, and directly related to the other; where one leads to another and back again, in a continuous, evolving, and cyclical process (kind of like a lot of things in life).

The 5 points are: Self – Mindset – Action – Overcome – Success

But it’s not linear like that, the way I have to write it out. It’s an ongoing circle, and one point feeds and leads to the other and back the other way again, all interrelated and interconnected in a cyclical pattern.

Here’s a quick pic of what I mean (please forgive my less than stellar drawing skills :-)).

SELFThe top of the circle is Self because Socrates was right when he said, “Know thyself.” The starting point always has to be YOU!

Like everything else in life, realizing your dreams, becoming your best, and achieving your goals always starts with YOU, your SELF! It’s from there that everything else flows, and what all the other points on that circle are first based on.

This has everything to do with self-awareness, really knowing who you are, what you love, what you want; your values, your beliefs, and living your truth based on that, versus living according to other people’s beliefs and expectations.

And, it has everything to do with trusting yourself, forgiving yourself, being authentic, and being accountable to yourself in order to do that. And then, ultimately it’s about how you define, for yourself, what “success” is (which is where and why the last point on that circle connects back to the Self and the other way again).

MINDSETThe next point is Mindset because how you choose to see the world, how you think about things, and your perspective on everything, dictates your behaviors, actions, and reactions toeverything!!! This has everything to do with your psychology and your belief systems.

Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in making the impossible possible? Do you believe you can always learn more, grow more, and become more? Do you live for today, for yesterday, or for tomorrow?

Do you appreciate all that you have and all that you’ve accomplished already, without that taking away from the fact that you still want to strive for more? Do you believe there’s always a lesson to be learned from the challenges and “failures” you face in life?

Do you believe you can accomplish pretty much anything you put your mind to?

Again, all these “Mindset questions” tie back to the Self point – believing in yourself, your values, your beliefs – and, they also naturally lead to the next point, which is…

You know that believing in something, while crucial and necessary, on its own is not enough to make it happen. You need to actually do something. To achieve results, to move forward, and to progress, you need to take action.

But, the key is taking inspired action that is purposefully connected and directly related to your Self, your Mindset, and ultimately to the Success you want to achieve. Right?

Otherwise, it’s just doing stuff with no meaning, no joy, no purpose, and basically getting trapped in the busyness of being busy. (Not particularly fun or fulfilling, and definitely NOT what Seize Your Passion and living life to the fullest is about).

But, you also know that when you do take action, you’re inevitably going to stumble, fall, and hit some major roadblocks. Which is exactly where the inspired action – the actions you take that have a solid foundation of Self and Mindset already stacked under them – comes in to play!

AND, it’s where Sisu gets to take the lead!!!! So that you can overcome those challenges and roadblocks.

OVERCOMEHow you respond, react, and move past, over, under, or through those roadblocks so you can continue to take inspired action despite them (and sometimes because of them), that’s exactly how you Overcome them.

Having the sisu, the grit, the resilience, the perseverance, and the determination to do that because you have all the other elements of Self, Mindset, and Action already in place!

The elements of knowing yourself, believing in yourself, and trusting yourself. Of knowing that you can learn and grow from this, believing that you can overcome this, and trusting that the best is yet to come.

Of knowing that every choice, behavior, action, and reaction you take has a direct causal effect on everything else, that your actions make a difference, that your goals can be achieved one action step at a time, and knowing what types of actions you’re gong to take because of that.

Of trusting, believing, and knowing that this too shall pass, that you’ll come out on the other side – better, stronger, wiser, and truer for it!!!

Which will lead you to…

SUCCESSIf you don’t know where you want to go, or what that even looks like, then you’re not going to get there.

The word “success” really has so many different meanings and definitions to each and every one of us, if we allow it to. The problem is, most of us confine ourselves to adopt without question the most prevalent, popular, and accepted definitions of it, without even giving ourselves the opportunity to truly define it for ourselves.

It’s precisely why so many of us do everything “right”, everything we’re supposed to do, and everything we’ve been taught will bring us that accepted generic definition of success.

We accomplish so much, we achieve and acquire a lot, and yet –why do so many of us so often feel empty, drained, stressed, anxious, unhappy, and sometimes just plain miserable – despite all that???

The answer isn’t because that’s life, and life sucks. And it’s definitely NOT because you’re not good enough and you suck (though that’s typically the Mindset most of us tend to go to).

I think the answer has a lot to do with this point of Success on that circle, and how it relates back, and is founded upon, every other point too.

I think the answer is often because we haven’t allowed ourselves (and honored ourselves by doing so) to truly tap into our Self, our Mindset, our Actions, and how we Overcome shit, to know how we define what Success really even is, for us!

And, by the way, your definition may actually end up being identical or at least very similar to the generally held one. And that’s totally fine and great (not that you need me to approve it for you).

The difference though, is that you’ll know that it’s yours! It’ll be based on your Self, and everything that flows from that – your truth, your values, your beliefs, your actions, your grit, your resilience, and your Sisu!

It’ll be based on your Self, your Mindset, your Action, how you Overcome stuff, and your Success!

So you’ll feel that your entire life – everything you do, your perspective, your achievements, your mistakes, and your wins – match up with that definition.

And because of that, you’ll feel less of the anxious, tired, depressed, and unfulfilled feelings, and way more of the excited, impassioned, determined, joyful, confident, empowered, inspired, and SISU feelings instead!

And that, my friend, is what Seizing Your Passion is all about. That’s what Sisu is about. And, that’s what life is about!!!!

So, go forth with Sisu, my friend. Do more of what you love, be more of who you love, and Seize Your Passion!

To Yourself…And What That Means

Let’s talk about coming home, shall we 🙂 .

“Seize Your Passion,” as an ethos and as a philosophy, is largely about coming home to yourself.

So what does that really mean?

Well, if seizing your passion is about doing what you love and being who you love in a way that empowers you to go after your dreams, become the best version of you, and literally create your most magnificent, joyful, meaningful, and successful life, then first – you have to know what it is that youtruly love, you have to know what your dreams really are, and you have to know how you define, for yourself, what that magnificent, joyful, meaningful, and successful life looks like.

It sounds obvious. It sounds simple. But, how many of us really, and I mean really – honestly, vulnerably, and truly – do that?!

Even when we’re so sure that we do, but we’re not even aware that we really don’t. (That was me for a long time).

Here’s the thing – in order to truly know what you want and why you want it, which is the starting point for going after whatever “it” is, before you can even do that in any true and authentic way, you first need to understand your truth: your values, your beliefs, your desires, your standards.

But they have to be your own. They can’t be the ones that were put on you, even if you openly embraced them. Being aware, questioning, and then discovering for yourself whether they really are your own or not is paramount.

Live Your Truth!I can’t say it enough, and I won’t ever stop. Because living your truth is such a foundational, fundamental piece of what it means to truly seize your passion, to realize your dreams, and to become your best self!

What it means to truly know and understand yourself, your desires, your goals, your values, your beliefs, and what you really want out of life – how you define your success, your happiness, and your dreams. It’s truly the foundational and fundamental piece for literally creating and actually living your life.

“People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.” – Thomas Merton

One way to explore that is doing more of what you love NOT for the outwardly rewards it will bring you, NOT for the end results it may produce, BUT RATHER for the love of it itself. Plain and simple.

That’s not meant to say that you shouldn’t or can’t seek or want outwardly rewards too. We live in this world, and we’re human, and like everything else – it’s not one or the other. It’s both.

But, if we’re talking about truly seizing your passion, realizing your dreams, and becoming your best self, then maybe we should also consider thinking about “success” and “happiness” not always as the end goal, the way we’ve been cultivated and taught to think about it.

Maybe we should consider thinking about the real end goal as fulfilling your personal legend, as living your truth, as expressing yourself in the world in the way you were meant to do, as realizing your dreams, your purpose, and attaining meaning and fulfillment in this one life we were given!!!

It so happens that the by-product of those end goals inevitably bring success and happiness with them. You know this, we all do. And yet we forget to live by it, and act accordingly.

“Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue…as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.”– Viktor Frankl

I challenge you to think of something you love to do simply because you love doing it. Not because it will bring you success, approval, recognition, praise, or status.

“How may activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight in and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and love.“– Anthony DeMello

We pursue intrinsic values when we do something solely because we love it. We pursue extrinsic values when we chase status, recognition, approval, and material gains.

And even all of us who aren’t money-chasing, greedy, shallow bastards- if we’re being completely honest with ourselves, we’re all pretty extrinsically motivated, to some degree or another.

We all care about what other people think of us, we care about societal norms, and what’s considered “good” or “smart” or “impressive” according to our culture. And that’s normal, that’s ok, and it’s also what makes us human.

But it’s not ok when it’s out of balance, and completely overpowers and overrides our intrinsic values and motivations. (It’s no secret, by the way, that the prevalence of social media in our lives today only exacerbates our extrinsic motivations and dampens our intrinsic ones with its current direction and focus on competition, comparison, and winning approval – but that’s an entirely different conversation).

And we’re smart. We’re deep. We know that none of those extrinsic goals bring lasting fulfillment or even lasting happiness. We know that when we pursue intrinsic goals – the pursuits and activities that bring us inner joy, laughter, peace, love, energy, and yes- that light up our passion- that’s the stuff that life is meant to be made of!!! Right?! We know this.

And we’re grounded too. We get it. No one’s saying- ignore your responsibilities, don’t work hard, forget about money, or disregard your ego-centric desires to become successful. No.

But, what I am saying is that maybe we should start paying as much attention, devoting as much time, energy, and strategy into all the pursuits and activities that serve those intrinsic values too, just as we do our extrinsic ones.

Maybe we should start doing more of what we love, what makes us smile, laugh, and cry (the good kind of crying), spend more time with people that lift us up, play more, dance more, sing more, whatever it may be that you love doing just because you love doing it.

More doing what you love because you love it.

And again, the irony here is that once we do start doing that – we discover that our extrinsic goals actually come along with it too.

Partly because how you do anything affects how you do everything; and because every aspect of your life affects every aspect of your life. Because we are holistic beings. Just like when you change any one part, however small, of a system, organism, or an organization, you change the whole at the same time. Because you can’t compartmentalize and separate one part from another, as much as we like to do that.

And partly because our daily, on their own seemingly innocuous, behaviors and thoughts actually create our life over time.

“Every pebble of thought — no matter how inconsequential — creates endless ripples of consequence. This idea, coined the butterfly effect by Edward Lorenz came from the metaphorical example of a hurricane being influenced by minor signals – such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly – several weeks earlier. Little things become big things. When one area of your life is out of alignment, every area of your life suffers….Conversely, when you improve one area of your life, all other areas are positively influenced.”– Benjamin Hardy

“Our hourly thoughts and acts, each in itself apparently of no moment, in time build our foundations and erect thereon our life’s structure.” – B.C. Forbes

And it shouldn’t be work versus play. Dreams versus reality. idealism versus practicality. Those are all false opposing constructs we’ve all bought into. It’s both! It’s always both!!! Work hard, yes. But play hard too. Dream huge, and make those dreams fit into your reality and make them real. Stay true to your ideals, and strategize them so they become useful and practical. Do what you love and also pay the price of pain and suffering that will come with that. All these things lead to lasting and true meaning and fulfillment.

“The Master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. he hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.”– Zen Buddhist Text

For me, all of that (and still so much more) is what it really means to come home to yourself.

As always, Do more of what you love and be more of who you love!!! #SeizeYourPassion!